John Thomas Davies VC

b. 29/09/1895 Tranmere, Cheshire. d. 28/10/1955 St Helens, Cheshire.

John Thomas Davies (1895-1955) was born on 29th September 1895 at 19 Railway Road, Tranmere, Cheshire. He was baptised on 21st November and was known as Jack. His father, John Davies, was born in Birkenhead of Welsh origin. He married Margaret Hughes, from Mostyn, Flintshire in c. 1886. John senior was a labourer who later moved to St Helens in 1898 where he worked in a glass bottle factory. He later worked as a platelayer’s labourer at Ravenhead Brick & Pipe Works. John junior had three siblings.

John was educated at Arthur Street School, St Helens and was a brick worker at the same brick and pipe works as his father. In 1911 he was a colliery screen labourer. He enlisted in September 1914 and joined 11th Battalion (St Helens Pals / St Helens Pioneers). He trained with the battalion at Bangor, Grantham and Larkhill on Salisbury Plain before getting ready to embark for the Western Front.

John T Davies VC 2

After disembarking, he served in France from 6th November 1915, and in 1916 he was wounded twice on the Somme front. By 1918, although still only 22 years old, Jack was an experienced and battle-hardened soldier when Germany launched a great Spring offensive in a last desperate attempt to win the war. In March 1918, the St Helens Pals were occupying positions 12 miles southwest of St Quentin near the village of Eppeville. After heavy shelling the Germans advanced from their bridgehead across the Somme at Ham and, within an hour, the Pals’ forward companies were in danger of being surrounded and under heavy rifle and machine-gun fire.

On 24th March 1918 near Eppeville, France, when his company was ordered to withdraw, Corporal Davies knew that the only line of withdrawal lay through a deep stream lined with a belt of barbed wire and that it was imperative to hold up the enemy as long as possible. He mounted the parapet in full view of the enemy in order to get a more effective field of fire and kept his Lewis gun in action to the last, causing many enemy casualties and enabling part of his company to get across the river, which they would otherwise have been unable to do.

He was believed killed during the action, and his parents were notified of his death in action, and his Victoria Cross was gazetted posthumously, before information was received two months later that, almost incredibly under the circumstances, he was in fact a prisoner. It was discovered he was alive when a request for food from a POW camp at Zagan, Silesia (Poland) informed them otherwise.

On 7th January 1919 Davies was repatriated to England and received a very special welcome when he returned to his home at Alma Street, Peasley Cross, St Helens. On 5th April 1919, he was presented with his VC by King George V in the Ballroom of Buckingham Palace, and in the same year he was discharged from the Army. It is believed he is one of only two VCs (the other being Herbert Le Patourel in WWII) who was awarded the VC posthumously when actually still alive. John married Beatrice Travers on 31st March 1920 at St Chad’s Church, Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire. They had three children – Eunice, Alan (who died in 1943 in a drowning accident at Taylor Park Lake, St Helens) and Sydney.

In civilan life he was employed in a local glass bottle factory and in the Second World War he served with the 75th Battalion of the West Lancashire Home Guard (South Lancashire Regiment), becoming a Captain by the end of the war. In later life, he was a regular visitor to the Regimental Depot and was a friend of another holder of the VC, John Molyneux of the Royal Fusiliers, who was awarded the medal in 1917. The two men attended functions together and in the 1930s were presented to the Prince of Wales. On 19th July 1924 the new cathedral of Liverpool was consecrated and when in the afternoon the King reviewed the 55th West Lancashire Territorial Division at Wavertree Playground, Davies was one of nine VCs present.

John died suddenly of a heart attack, aged just 60, on 28th October 1955, at 27 Leslie Road, St Helens and was buried in the St Helens Borough Cemetery. John is commemorated with a framed collage in the VC and GC Association Office, Horse Guards, London, with a framed collage in Birkenhead Town Hall, and with VC commemorative stones placed at St Helens Cenotaph on 23rd March 2018, and at Birkenhead War Memorial on 11th November 2018.

In addition to his VC, he was awarded the 1914-15 Star, British War Medal 1914-20, Victory Medal 1914-19, George VI Coronation Medal 1937 and Elizabeth II Coronation Medal 1953. The VC is held in the Imperial War Museum Collection.

LOCATION OF MEDAL: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM, LONDON.

BURIAL PLACE: ST HELENS BOROUGH CEMETERY, ST HELENS, LANCASHIRE.

AREA 59, GRAVE 426.